Pisanosaurus Temporal range: Late Triassic
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Reconstruction of the skull, white bones are known, light grey bones were known from heavily eroded impressions | |
Scientific classification | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Clade: | Dinosauria |
Clade: | †Ornithischia (?) |
Genus: | †Pisanosaurus Casamiquela, 1967 |
Species: | †P. mertii
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Binomial name | |
†Pisanosaurus mertii Casamiquela, 1967
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Pisanosaurus (/pɪsænəˈsɔːrəs/) is an extinct genus of early dinosauriform, likely an ornithischian or silesaurid, from the Late Triassic of Argentina. It was a small, lightly built, ground-dwelling herbivore, that could grow up to an estimated 1 m (3.3 ft) long. Only one species, the type, Pisanosaurus mertii, is known, based on a single partial skeleton discovered in the Ischigualasto Formation of the Ischigualasto-Villa Unión Basin in northwestern Argentina. This part of the formation has been dated to the late Carnian, approximately 229 million years ago.[1]